Color Basics (2024)

A color wheel is an illustrative model of color huesaround a circle. It shows the relationships between theprimary, secondary, and intermediate/ tertiary colorsand helps demonstrate color temperature. Digital teamscommunicate exact colors through the use of hex codes.

Understanding the Color Wheel

Many color wheels are shown using 12 colors. Using thiscolor wheel as an example, it can be read as follows:

  • Color Basics (1)ThreePrimary Colors (Ps): Red, Yellow, Blue
  • Three Secondary Colors (S’):Orange, Green, Violet
  • Six Tertiary Colors (Ts):Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow-Green,Blue-Green, Blue-Violet, Red-Violet, which areformed by mixing a primary with a secondary

It’s important to note that some people add moreintermediates, for 24 total named colors, and some colorwheels show interior points and circles, which representcolor mixtures.

Color Temperature

The colors on the red side of the wheel are warm; thegreen side of the wheel has the cooler colors. Thesecolor temperature designations are absolute. More subtlecolor temperature relationships are relative, meaningthat each color on the warm side of the wheel can beknown as cool, and colors on the cools side of the wheelcan be known as warm depending on the relationship totheir neighboring color. Colors from the same hue, forinstance red, can also be warmer or cooler than oneanother.

Color temperatures affect us both psychologically andperceptually by helping us determine how objects appearpositioned.

Warm ColorsCool Colors

Color Basics (2)

  • Warm colors include red, orange, andyellow, and variations of thosethree colors.
  • Red and yellow are both primarycolors, with orange falling in themiddle.
  • Warm colors appear closer to theobserver.

Color Basics (3)

  • Cool colors include green, blue, andpurple, and variations of thosethree colors.
  • Blue is the only primary colorwithin the cool spectrum.
  • Greens take on some of theattributes of yellow, and purpletakes on some of the attributes ofred.
  • They are often more subdued thanwarm colors.
  • Cool colors appear farther from theobserver.

Neutrals

Color Basics (4)Neutralcolors include black, white, gray, tans, and browns.They’re commonly combined with brighter accent colorsbut they can also be used on their own in designs. Themeanings and impressions of neutral colors depend moreso upon the colors around them.

Color Models: CMYK vs. RGB

There are two models for colors. They have differentpurposes and different attributes. They are as follows:

  • Color Basics (5)CMYKColor Models: Stands for cyan, magenta,and yellow. It applies to painting and printing.The CMYK model is a subtractive model, meaning thatcolors are created through absorbing wavelengths ofvisible light. The wavelengths of light that don’tget absorbed are reflected, and that reflected lightends up being the color we see.
  • RGB Color Models: RGB stands forred, green, and blue. It applies to computers,televisions, and electronics. The RGB model is anadditive model, meaning that colors are createdthrough light waves that are added together inparticular combinations in order to produce colors.

Hex Codes

To name colors in web design, teams use hexademal code.All hexadermal codes:

  • Start with a hash mark (#)
  • Color Basics (6)Consistof three pairs of characters sequenced together(totaling of six characters), with each paircontrolling one of the primary additive colors (red,green, blue)
  • Those six characters following the hash mark consistof ten numerals (0-9) and/ or six letters (a-f)

It is easy to identify patterns in the hex codes somecolors; see SmashingMagazine’sgreat chart Color Basics (7)at theright for this. Some things to know include:

  • 00is a lack of primary
  • ffis the primary at full strength

To find additive colors, start with black and change eachpair toff:

  • Color Basics (8)#000000isblack (no primaries)
  • #ff0000is the brightest red
  • #00ff00is the brightest green
  • #0000ffis the brightest blue

To find subtractive colors, start with white and changeeach pair to00:

  • #ffffffis white (all primaries
  • #00ffffis the brightest cyan
  • #ff00ffis the brightest magenta
  • #ffff00is the brightest yellow

It is also possible to abbreviate some hex numbers. Forinstances #fae expands to #ffaaee and #09b expands to#0099bb.

Additional Resources

Color Basics (2024)

FAQs

What is the 60 30 10 rule for presentation? ›

The Old 60-30-10 Rule

If you've selected three colors, a good way to balance them on a slide or throughout the presentation is the 60-30-10 rule. This means that the primary color takes up 60% of the space, the secondary takes up 30%, and the accent color accounts for the final 10%.

What is the most accurate color wheel? ›

The Pigment Color Wheel, CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black), is usually used for ink and printing. It is a very accurate color wheel like the light color wheel, and is actually closely related to it.

What is the basic color rule? ›

Its simple rule is to choose two opposite colors on the color wheel to create a complementary color scheme. The complementary color scheme is based on contrast, and, therefore, it attracts a lot of attention. However, one must use it with great care and precision since it can overturn a graphic design layout.

What are the 6 basics colors? ›

Why are there only six fundamental colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet? There are an infinite number of fundamental colors, if by "fundamental" you mean "spectral". Spectral colors are also known loosely as rainbow colors.

What is the 7 7 7 rule presentation? ›

Follow the “Seven-by-Seven rule”

a. Use no more than 7 words per line and no more than 7 lines per visual. b. If you need more words, make sub-points below the main point.

What is the 5 5 5 rule? ›

Some experts suggest using the 5/5/5 rule: no more than five words per line of text, five lines of text per slide, or five text-heavy slides in a row.

What is the hardest color to recognize? ›

17 Obscure Colors You've Never Heard Of
  • Gamboge.
  • Glaucous.
  • Sarcoline.
  • Skobeloff.
  • Smaragdine.
  • Wenge.
  • Vantablack.
  • Zaffre.
Dec 3, 2021

What is the easiest color to recognize? ›

Our eyes are most sensitive to yellow and green, so they're the easiest colors for us to see, even when we're not looking directly at them. And even people with red-green color blindness can still see yellow, that's why it's the most popular color for highlighters.

What is the least favored color? ›

Yellow is the least favorite color, preferred by only five percent of people. Another interesting survey finding: both men and women increasingly dislike orange as they age!

What is the 3 rule color? ›

The rule of 3 colors is simple: pick one primary color. Then, pick two other complementary colors. See the example below. We picked a main hue (a variation red), and complemented it with two different colors.

What is the 3 color style rule? ›

The underlying premise of the three colour rule is to not combine more than three colours in your outfit at any one time. The exception being black and white, which are technically not 'colours' but tones, and can be intermixed as a fourth colour in your outfit.

What are the 4 colors rules? ›

The four-color theorem states that any map in a plane can be colored using four-colors in such a way that regions sharing a common boundary (other than a single point) do not share the same color. This problem is sometimes also called Guthrie's problem after F. Guthrie, who first conjectured the theorem in 1852.

What is the 7 color order? ›

The colours of the rainbow are: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Can you find items from around the house in each of the seven colours?

What colors make white? ›

Additive mixing

Additive primaries act as sources of light. The primaries red, green, and blue combine pairwise to produce the additive secondaries cyan, magenta, and yellow. Combining all three primaries (center) produces white.

What colors make black? ›

To make pure black, mix blue, magenta, and yellow in equal parts. You can test this out on your sketch pad; put a dab of the three paints on your pad and mix colors with a paint brush or palette knife until achieving a rich black. 3. Experiment with mixing as needed.

What is the 10 20 30 rule? ›

To save the venture capital community from death-by-PowerPoint, he evangelized the 10/20/30 rule for presentations which states that “a presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.”

What is 555 presentation rule? ›

The 5/5/5 Rule explains what it is right in the name: when creating slides for your presentation, use at most: 5 words on a single line. 5 lines of text on a single slide. 5 slides that apply the first two rules in a row.

What is the golden rule of presentation? ›

The Most Important Rule: Less is More

Remember that the focus should always remain on the presenter and the story they're telling – your presentation is an accompaniment to help you illustrate the ideas you're communicating, not a textbook to be studied.

What is the 5 and 3 rule? ›

5: Should be content from others that is relevant to your audience. 3: Should be content from you that is relevant to your audience, but not sales focused. 2: Should be personal, fun content that helps humanise your brand.

What is the 5x5 rule for anxiety? ›

First, you may want to start with a simple deep breathing exercise called the 5-5-5 method. To do this, you breathe in for 5 seconds, hold your breath for 5 seconds, and then breathe out for 5 seconds. You can continue this process until your thoughts slow down or you notice some relief.

What are the forbidden colors? ›

Red-green and yellow-blue are the so-called "forbidden colors." Composed of pairs of hues whose light frequencies automatically cancel each other out in the human eye, they're supposed to be impossible to see simultaneously.

Who is the rarest color? ›

Blue is one of the rarest of colors in nature. Even the few animals and plants that appear blue don't actually contain the color. These vibrant blue organisms have developed some unique features that use the physics of light. First, here's a reminder of why we see blue or any other color.

What color can not be seen? ›

However, there are other “colours” that our eyes can't see, beyond red and violet, they are: infrared and ultraviolet.

Which color is best for eyes? ›

Green, the mixture of blue and yellow, can be seen everywhere and in countless shades. In fact, the human eye sees green better than any color in the spectrum.

What color is the easiest on eyes? ›

These colours (yellow, green, orange) are in the middle of the visible spectrum (the range of colours that our eyes can detect) and are the easiest for the eye to see. Our eyes are not as receptive or sensitive to the colours at the extreme ends of the visible spectrum (e.g., blue, violet/purple, and red).

What color are humans most sensitive to? ›

As mentioned previously, cones are composed of three different photo pigments that enable color perception. This curve peaks at 555 nanometers, which means that under normal lighting conditions, the eye is most sensitive to a yellowish-green color.

What is the most humble color? ›

White: Reverence, purity, birth, simplicity, cleanliness, peace, humility, precision, innocence, youth, winter, snow, good, sterility, marriage (Western cultures), death (Eastern cultures), cold, clinical.

What is a woman's favorite color? ›

Universally, studies show that blue is both men and women's primary preferred color. One study dove into why blue is so popular and found that it's associated with clean water, clear skies, authority, truth and tranquility. Both men and women also like green and red as top favorite colors.

What is the most beautiful color? ›

Thus, the most attractive color is blue, the second most preferred is red, followed by green, while yellow was found to be the least preferred color (Figure 1).

What 3 colors go well together? ›

If you're looking for a few basic but perennially popular 3 color combinations to kickstart your color palette, think about combinations like:
  • Yellow, red, and blue.
  • Green, orange, and purple.
  • Teal, magenta, and gold.

What is the 60 30 10 color rule? ›

What is the 60-30-10 Rule? It's a classic decor rule that helps create a color palette for a space. It states that 60% of the room should be a dominant color, 30% should be the secondary color or texture and the last 10% should be an accent.

Can you wear two different shades of blue? ›

Blues are here to last. Recently I've been wearing quite a lot of monochromatic outfits, not only are they easy to mix with, but it gives the look such a clean aesthetic, classy too! Don't be afraid to layer up the different hues, just think – harmony.

What are the three steps to color perception? ›

The three variables in color vision—hue, saturation, and brightness—all depend on wavelength. Color discrimination experiments allow us to know how much change in wavelength is required to detect a difference in hue, saturation, and brightness.

What are the 5 guidelines to using color correctly? ›

Give five guidelines for using color correctly:
  • Paint a large swatch of paint on the wall. ...
  • Too many strong color contrasts can be confusing and tiring.
  • The base color of a room should take up about 2/3 of the room area. ...
  • For large spaces, use low intensity colors.
  • Heavily textured surfaces make colors appear darker.

What is the correct order of all colors? ›

He also noted that the sequence of the colours of a rainbow never changed, always running in the same order. He coined the idea that there are seven colours in a spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (ROYGBIV).

What is the best color order? ›

When organizing by color, look to the rainbow. "Start with white, cream, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, brown, gray, and black," says Melanie Walker, the owner of NEAT Method. There are some other hues that are harder to place when working on the ROYGBIV system, like gold and silver.

What order do you color code? ›

ROYGBIV – Roy-gee-biv! Sort by the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Many people believe it's the best way to go about color coding a closet—it's easy to remember and provides greater contrast between groups.

What two colors make black? ›

You can make black paint by mixing together equal parts red, blue, and yellow paint. You can also mix opposite colors on the color wheel to make black, like red and green, blue and orange, or yellow and purple. Blue and brown mixed together will also make black.

What colors make grey? ›

What colors to mix to make gray. To mix the color gray you can simply mix black with white. To make a lighter gray you would mix more white into the black or the reverse for a dark gray color.

What two colors make blue? ›

However, there are two colors that you can mix to make blue. Once you have created your true blue color, then you can begin creating any blue hue that you can imagine. So, what are the two colors you can mix to make blue? Mix cyan (greenish-blue) with magenta (purplish-red), to create true blue.

What colors make gold? ›

The two colors you can mix to create gold are yellow and brown. You may add more colors to tint the gold, but these are the two primary colors that make gold.

What two colors make brown? ›

Keeping these principles in mind when it comes to the color brown, you can also combine a secondary color with its complementary color. By looking at the color wheel, that would mean combining blue and orange will give you brown, as will purple and yellow.

What colors together make red? ›

Red is a primary color, so you cannot mix your own pure red color. However, you can create (by mixing) a variety of different shades of red – dark red, light red, cool red, warm red and muted red…

What is the 1 7 7 rule in PowerPoint? ›

What is the 7x7 Rule for PowerPoint? The 7x7 Rule says that, for each slide in your presentation, you should use no more than: 7 lines (or bullets) per slide. 7 (or fewer) words per line.

What is the rule of 2 4 8 in presentation? ›

The rule of 2-4-8

The 2-4-8 rule states a presentation must give 2 minutes per slide, and it should have four bullet points per slide and eight words for every bullet point.

What is the 4 by 4 rule in presentations? ›

4x4 rule — If you have to use bullets use them sparingly — use one thought per line, no more than four words per line and no more than four bullets on a single slide. Typically do not write in complete sentences — the shorter, more concise your message the better.

What is 248 rule for PPT? ›

Experts emphasize – and practitioners know – the 2.4. 8 rule: 2 minutes per slide / 4 bullet points per slide / 8 words per bullet point. But how often do we actually follow it? And how easy is it?

What is 666 rules in ppt? ›

The 666 Rule.

Use no more than 6 words per bullet, 6 bullets per slide, or 6 word slides in a row. If you have more than 6 words per bullet, then it is not a bullet point — bullets should not be complete sentences. More than 6 bullets per slide and your audience will have difficulty reading the slide.

What is 6 6 rule of presentation? ›

Follow the 6 x 6 rule: To avoid too much information on one slide, use this as your guide: Only one thought per line with no more than six bullet points per slide and no more than six words per bullet point/line.

What does 6x6 rule says in ppt? ›

The 6x6 rule states that the maximum amount of bullet points you can have on a slide is six, with a maximum of six words per point. Following this rule can help your slides look more professional and organized, and makes it easier for your audience to read.

What is the 10 40 rule presentation? ›

I call it the 10-40 Rule: the first ten slides of your presentation should contain no more than forty words.

What is the 10 second rule in presentation? ›

What's the 10-second rule? Simple – whatever you put on your slide, a person should be able to fully comprehend it in 10 seconds or less, according to Dewett. And it is a simple rule to adhere to, as all you have to do is look at your slides one-by-one for 10 seconds each, and see if you can fully comprehend each one.

Is there a platinum rule? ›

As opposed to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," as the golden rule states, the platinum rule asks you to "do unto others, wherever possible, as they would want to be done to them."

What are the 4 C's of a good presentation? ›

Four C's of an Exceptional Presentation
  • 1) Care. Providing an engaging presentation on a topic you find dull is a talent for only the best of actors. ...
  • 2) Content. Attendees exist to learn something they didn't know before. ...
  • 3) Coach. ...
  • 4) Connect.
Nov 8, 2019

What is the 7 seconds rule on presentation? ›

Always remember that first impressions are the key to success, and you can never repeat them. Those 7 seconds are all you have. With that in mind, you might want to think about introducing your presentation with a particularly powerful image or expressive text.

What is the 5 second rule in presentations? ›

Designers take the view that they have a small amount of time, perhaps 5 seconds, to engage the viewer. They believe that if they fail, the viewer will just move on, and the communication will fail.

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